Author: Selene MacLeod

Selene: Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thanks for agreeing to an interview. Tell us a bit about yourself.

 

Eric: Thank you so much for your time and for allowing me to be a small part of The Horror Tree!

 

A bit about me, via my usual bio: I’m a writer and editor of dark and speculative fiction, operating from the shadowy outskirts of Los Angeles, where I also run the small press, Dark Moon Books. By day job, I’m a technical writer and college professor, and before that I worked in mortgage banking. I’m married, with a young son and daughter. Plus I’ve a dog, cats, desert tortoise, and a terrarium filled with mischievous beetles. I’ve survived 42 years on this Earth, although I feel half that age mentally. I’ve travelled quite a bit, but I’ve lived in the same 25-mile radius in Southern California my entire life. I’m a pretty normal suburban White dude (third-generation Swiss-American), mostly passive, mostly introverted, pretty easy-going. I can jump rope all day long. I founded a hackysack club, that’s long gone under. My wife and I grew up together. I feel more comfortable in a dive bar than a fancy club. Outside other life responsibilities, I enjoy hiking and I study entomology (insects) and genealogy (family history); I woodwork in my garage; model miniatures; and read, read, read!

 

Selene: How long have you been writing, and what about the horror genre draws you?

 

Eric: I’ve been writing fiction driven by the goal of publication since February, 2011. However, I’ve been writing and drawing stories ever since I was a child. I just did it then for my own interest, or for friends. I stopped in college, in order to pursue business and serious-minded life necessities… which, of course, I now regret. I don’t regret the pursuit of those things, but rather having given up writing for so many years. I only jumped into as a potential career after the realization struck me that I was missing out on something I was passionate about!

 

And part II to your question, regarding the horror genre: I’ve just always found horror to be “exciting.” It gets my heart pumping, adrenaline rushing, etc. I enjoy literary thrills of all kinds, whether the ghosts and monsters of horror, or the shoot-em-up conquest of military conquest; the excitement and wanderlust of adventure tales, or the far-flung speculative legends or fables from any era or land. They all inspire me in different ways!

 

Selene: Your bio mentions all of your literary influences. Was there ever an “a-ha” moment, when you decided you wanted to be a genre writer, or did it come about in some other way?

 

Eric: All my life I’ve been drawn to creation, whether writing, drawing, painting, building, acting, designing. I’m sure it must have been infuriating to my parents, I could never decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I still don’t. One day I think I should be a businessman, the next day a cowboy. I fulfill my responsibilities, but otherwise I’m lost adrift in my own whims and imagination. Suffice it to say, I’ve always just wanted to have a creative profession, but to balance that with success and wealth, which, naturally, I have yet to find!

 

Selene: Is there a person or people who have really influenced your writing decisions?

 

Eric: I can’t say that any one author has had the most influence. I first read Stephen King in elementary school, and then his subsequent novels through my formative years, along with the horror standards of the late ’80s and early ’90s, like Dean Koontz and Anne Rice, so those were my first introductions to horror reading. I grew to like short stories more though, and comics, and I read across genres, so I can say there are a number of authors who have impacted me in different ways, whether by their plot twists, or humor, or relatable characters, or rich prose, etc.

 

Those authors I currently adore and consider influences and inspirations include Cormac McCarthy, George Orwell, Stephen Graham Jones, Jeffrey Ford, Lisa Morton, Kaaron Warren, Dennis Lehane, Seanan McGuire, Joe R. Lansdale, Nisi Shawl, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, Neil Gaiman, Robert McCammon, Mark Bowden, O. Henry, James Ellroy, Steve Rasnic Tem, Helen Marshall, John Steinbeck, Weston Ochse, John Langan, and many others…

 

Selene: We’ll get to your own writing in a moment, but first I’d like to talk about your work as an editor, which is how I’m familiar with your work. Tell us about this, and Dark Moon Books.

 

Eric: I find editing is easier for me than writing, although writing brings more satisfaction. Writing is emotionally exhausting, whereas editing I can do all day long. And I’m always thrilled with the chance to connect and work with other writers while editing. But I love so much to type “The End” at the end of a writing piece—it’s a wonderful, fulfilling sense. Both are different journeys to a creative destination.

 

And regarding Dark Moon Books—I bought it from its original founder last year, and completely rebranded it. I dropped all of its previous titles and started it over from the ground up. DMB was founded by Stan Swanson in 2011, and he was a mentor and friend who was one of the first people to buy my work, so Dark Moon Books since has just held a sweet, soft spot in my heart. I started off in the indie horror world knowing no one, and I blindly wrote to publisher after publisher asking them to work with me to publish my first anthology, Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations, and he was the only one willing. Anyway, as of a couple years ago, he’d stopped doing anything with the press, as he had some other life issues, and hackers had taken over the site. I didn’t want to see the name die, so I bought it out, built out a new secure site and image, and set a goal for it to be a short story venue, primarily for anthologies and my own oddball projects which can’t get signed elsewhere. My mission statement is for “Dark Moon Books to publish unusual and invigorating dark fiction for readers around the world.” I run my anthologies and Primers through there now, and hope to do more, but finances dictate most of those decisions.

 

Selene: Writing (and reading) and editing are sort of a chicken-and-egg cycle. Readers love stories and become writers and then editors, and so on. Do you find your editing work has improved your writing, and vice versa? I found when reading slush that my writing improved, through exposure to the editorial process and a feel for what makes a good story.

 

Eric: Oh yes, like, 1,000%!! I started editing because I wanted to improve as a writer, and it’s helped immensely. I recommend it to anyone wishing to improve their writing. By reading slush I saw what everyone else was writing about, the same tropes and styles, and immediately knew to write something going the other direction. By an aggregate of stories, I would find flaws in writing that I would then recognize in myself. And I found it’s true that you can accurately judge a story based on the opening paragraph, and in most cases the opening sentence. From editing, I gained experience in story development, author communications, layout, promotions and so on. I now look at projects from the multiple eyes of “Editor,” “Marketer,” “Distributor,” “Publisher,” and it’s made me a better person.

 

Additionally, my day job of Technical Writing can get dull at times, but it’s also definitely improved my fiction writing, by articulating stories in concise language, with focus on impact, brevity, and an understanding of audiences.

 

 

Selene: You’ve got a new anthology out this week, Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters, and Hot Rod Horror. How did this come about?

 

Eric: Funny that I can remember the moment so clearly, and that the moment was so bland. I was working remotely for my job, and I took a break and lay down on my bed, and out of nowhere I thought, “Man, I should create a horror anthology about rockabilly.” Totally random! I used to be a big rockabilly music and culture fan, and there was some great cross-over punk and gothic tunes, bands like the HorrorPops, Tiger Army, Nekromantix, and others, especially bands with Psychobilly tastes. And I used to collect Tiki Head statues and Fez caps, vintage pin-up artwork, stuff I don’t have any longer since having children. Anyway, such is kismet.

 

Selene: I was looking through your author listings on Amazon, and you have a vast range of work, from 100 word drabbles to novels, to what even appears to be a scholarly paper. You also work as a tech writer. What’s your favourite thing to write?

 

Eric: My main profession is as a Technical Writer, and I used to work in advertising and wrote copy write at that time. I’ve written for marketing, and academia, and also non-fiction of various subjects. Persuasive writing, content writing, descriptive writing, ghost writing, you name it. And each of these types of writing has different styles and nuances. But my favorite thing to write? Fiction short stories, of course!!! Totally, totally, totally!!

 

Selene: Another odd question. I read in your interview with The Horror Writers’ Association that you had taken a break from writing, then got back into it through genealogy. What interests you about genealogy, and how does it influence your work?

 

Eric: True, genealogy was a great connector back into fiction writing for me (and the following anecdote is a long-winded and off-track response to such). I have an obsession with family history stories, and had been writing articles for periodicals, and history books for family members on the subject. I’d been laid off the year prior (this about 2010) due to the mortgage market collapse, and so I was trying to publish more broadly on history articles (old pay-per-click models), and was chatting with a friend of my wife’s (whom I’d known in high school) about writing for income, as she’d recently started blogging for profit, and she remembered the fiction stories I used to write in years past. I told her that I was jealous and wished I could be a writer, and she said, “Well, what’s stopping you? Why don’t you write again?”

 

It was that simple… I really wondered then, why had I given up something I’d loved so long ago, for a failed mortgage career? It inspired me then to do something I was passionate about, rather than trying to rebuild a business life of which I’d never felt particularly adroit at. Which all goes to the age-old trade-off: Once I had money though was cheerless, and now I’m broke and happy (or at least having a sense of purpose)!

 

Selene: I’ve only managed to read a few of your stories, but I noticed a couple of things about your characters, namely strong protagonists, and a feeling for even minor characters as real people (even the ones who are aliens or robots!). How do you approach writing your characters?

 

Eric: First, read more of my stories (really, please!), haha. And thank you for the kind compliment. I don’t think that I have any formula for writing a character, it’s rather more of a litmus test. If I start to write someone, and they immediately feel “flat” or without purpose, I dispose of them and start over. I usually think of people in terms of flaws (myself included), and that carries over to characters. Everyone has emotional issues, disappointments, fears, curious or morbid ways, and that often drives what I write in the realms of dark and weird fiction.

 

Selene: Your plots are also pretty complex, even in your shortest stories. Where do you get your ideas, and are you a “pantser” or a “plotter,” so to speak?

 

Eric: OMG, I had to Google, “What is a Pantser?” But now that I know what it means, yes, a Pantser is I (most of the time)! I do always begin just by “writing as I go,” but if the story becomes complicated or I get burned out, or stuck, then I turn to plotting or outlining to figure the proper direction.

 

And ideas come, literally and figuratively, from everywhere: Dreams (both night and day), global news and current affairs, conversations with people, personal observations of the world, and playing the “What If?” game.

 

Selene: Your settings also vary wildly from story to story. I’ve read about a small town in PA and the “event horizon” of a black hole, and intimate settings such as an office or a bedroom after dark. How do you develop your story settings, and do you “write what you know” or try to imagine different places?

 

Eric: I always try to imagine different places, and enjoy researching different settings, even if they’re commonplace locales—reading what other people have written of geographic areas helps me imagine them in different ways. I don’t think I’ve ever written two stories in the same place, now that you mention it… It hasn’t been a conscious decision either, so considering that, I guess it’s just part of the creative process in that I want to “learn” about new ideas and places. I’m constantly surfing news and social media for interesting items that I store away in a Notes document. (So thanks, Selene, for prodding me to self-analyze something new about myself!)

 

Selene: I saw Facebook post from you the other day, outlining all the things you have on your plate right now. It can seem overwhelming. How do you juggle so many projects, and manage your time?

 

Eric: Probably not as well as I should! I constantly fear that I spread myself too thin, and that because I’ve involved myself in different activities and obligations, I don’t put truly sufficient time and attention into any of them. I work from home, which is really the only way I could possibly multi-task what I do, in that with flexible scheduling I can push things around at all hours of the night. I work full time as a corporate Technical Writer, plus two more part time gigs (including adjunct teaching in the University California system). I prioritize work and playing with my children: I coach AYSO Soccer and Little League baseball, and I’m Den Leader of my son’s Cub Scout Pack. Things like that are where I find meaning in life, along with my creative endeavors—I work on book projects whenever I have time. I don’t watch TV, I don’t socialize, I just read, write, and edit!

 

Selene: What advice would you give someone who’s just starting out, either in writing or editing?

 

Eric: Be confident to fail. Read broadly. Experiment. What I tell others, and what I repeat to myself like a mantra, is simply: “Keep writing, and remember that every rejection is an opportunity for improvement!”

 

Selene: Thank you again for answering my questions. Do you have anything else you’d like to talk about here?

 

Eric: Thank you, again, for your time, Selene. The only final things I like to say are to plug my latest works!

 

My most recent writing work is my debut collection, That Which Grows Wild: 16 Tales of Dark Fiction (Cemetery Dance Publications; July, 2018)

 

Quick synopsis: Equal parts of whimsy and weird, horror and heartbreak, That Which Grows Wild, by award-winning author Eric J. Guignard, collects sixteen short stories that traverses the darker side of the fantastic.

 

My latest published editing work is my anthology, A World of Horror, which is a showcase of international short fiction authors. (Dark Moon Books; September, 2018)

 

Quick synopsis: A World of Horror is an anthology of all new dark and speculative fiction stories written by authors from around the globe.

 

My next anthology to come out next month is, Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters, and Hot Rod Horror. (Dark Moon Books; January, 2019)

 

Quick synopsis: A 1950s-themed anthology of 18 all-new rockabilly, pulp, and horror tales, with fast cars, rowdy characters, and revved-up classic movie monsters.

 

Additionally, I’ve created an ongoing series of primers exploring modern masters of literary dark short fiction, titled: EXPLORING DARK SHORT FICTION, of which I’m estimating to release an average of 2—3 volumes per year (Vol. 1: Steve Rasnic Tem; Vol. II: Kaaron Warren; Vol. III: Nisi Shawl; Vol. IV: Jeffrey Ford; Vol. V: Han Song; Vol. VI: Ramsey Campbell).

 

Volume 3, for Nisi Shawl, will be landing in a few weeks!

 

And finally, I’m in process of shopping my first novel (publishers and agents, take note!), which I finished writing last year: Crossbuck ’Bo.

 

Quick synopsis: A Depression-era hobo rides the rails and learns the underlying Hobo Code is a secret language that leads into the world of shared memories, where whoever is remembered strongest can change history and alter the lives of the living.

 

If you would like to find out more about Eric and his writing endeavours, check out the links below.

 

Author website: www.ericjguignard.com

 

Dark Moon Books website: www.darkmoonbooks.com

 

Author Blog: ericjguignard.blogspot.com

 

Author Twitter: @ericjguignard

 

Dark Moon Books Twitter: @DarkMoonBooks

 

Dark Moon Books Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DarkMoonBooks2/

 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3410564.Eric_J_Guignard

 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiTNKU2P1Ixuq22kEfjump4IG1Q06tV1v

 

Selene: Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thanks for agreeing to this interview today. First off, tell us a bit about yourself.

 

Andy: Thanks for having me, Selene. Well, really, what to say? I always feel like people want a confession when they ask someone who writes horror to talk about themselves… like I’m going to admit to some dark secret that explains why I write what I write. Unfortunately, I don’t have any secrets like that. I’m just a huge fan of the horror genre and community at large. By day, I’m an elearning developer, which I swear is more exciting than it sounds – for me, anyway. I create online training with a focus on user experience. I try to make training interesting for the users. From the feedback we get, I think I’m mostly successful. Beyond that, I’m a cat loving, coffee addicted, book collecting, movie nerd and pop culture geek. I get excited about some of the stupidest things. I am also closing in on 9 delightful months as a newlywed. That’s really the biggest and best thing I’ve got going on right now.

 

Selene: How long have you been writing, and what draws you to the horror genre?

Andy: I think everyone wants to say something like “I’ve been writing all my life” and while that’s sort of true, I’ve only been really serious about it in last handful of years. I went to school for film and that really rekindled my love of storytelling, but film is a much more involved medium – there are budgets and crews and a cast… it’s too much. Writing is unbridled. Whatever you want in there, it suddenly exists.

If I wanted a monster in a film, I needed to come up with a concept, hire an artist to create it, get a special effects team or a CGI team to bring it to life, then we have to shoot the scenes… like I said: too much. If I want a monster in a book, I come up with it, and then I decide how much to tell. The great thing is that sometimes it’s what you don’t include makes it that much more powerful. Your brain will start filling in the gaps and suddenly things are more horrifying than I could ever come up with.

It’s less that I was drawn to the genre and more that I’ve always been here. I grew up watching horror movies with my dad, my aunt bought me Stephen King novels for every birthday and Christmas, my uncle took me to my first haunted house… I come from a long line of weirdos, so it was just kind of natural to be part of it and embrace it. There’s a very unrepeatable exhilaration to being scared. It doesn’t happen often for me, so I’m always chasing it… maybe that’s why. My wife would tell you that my scare is broken. I think it’s been broken for a long time, that’s probably why I’m always chasing the scares.

 

Selene: I read your story “The Christmas Miracle,” in the Mutate anthology. Let’s talk about body horror. How do you approach writing visceral scenes?

 

Andy: So, visceral horror is really not that much of a stretch when you realize how terrifying the human body is on its own. We are all just walking sacks of blood and meat, and any number of our organs are just waiting for the right moment to kill us. Everything about humans is terrifying. Everything that we do and are is a nightmare when you think about it.

So, what I like is the juxtaposition of something so natural and beautiful – like pregnancy – and adding an inhuman element to it, something unnatural and monstrous, as happens in Christmas Miracle. From there, I’m just following the natural progression of things in the story.

I don’t rely on body horror very often. I try to limit myself because it’s something that can be overdone so quickly. But sometimes I get an idea to play with something ugly and perverse. It gives me a chance to play Frankenstein from the safety of my own mind.

 

Selene: In the bio included in the Mutate anthology, there’s a mention of your 2013 novel Empty Hallways (which I grabbed over on Kindle but haven’t started reading yet!). Is it true you wrote it for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? Since it’s November, and some of our readers are probably deep in their word counts, let’s talk about that. Do you participate every year, and how does your NaNo process work?

Andy: Actually, all of my novels started as a NaNoWriMo challenge. Those 30 days are key for cranking out a fast first draft and putting an idea out of our head and on paper. I try to participate every year. I’ve got a great story that I’ve started working on for my fifth novel and next NaNoWriMo challenge… my tenth, maybe?

As far as a process, I’m what the NaNoWriMo community calls a Pantser – as it “by the seat of my pants”. When I was gearing up to write Empty Hallways, all I had was a title and the desire to write a ghost story.

So, it’s not much help to anyone on the receiving end of this advice, but really: it’s writing. Just write. Put it all down, one word at a time and keep going until it’s done. That’s the whole secret. It’s not even my secret. I’m pretty sure that’s advice from Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing (It is: https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/09/28/neil-gaiman-8-rules-of-writing/). But it’s solid advice that will get you through 30 days of NaNo. Don’t think, just write.

 

Selene: Speaking of November, you’ve got two author events upcoming in the next few weeks. Now’s the time to promote them, for any of our readers in your area.

 

Andy: Ah, thanks so much! I’m really excited about these events.

November 11, I’ll be in Monroe, Michigan for Writers on the River (https://monroe.lib.mi.us/events/writers-river), hosted by the Monroe County Library System. It promises to be a great time, with a couple of my favorite local authors: Peggy Christie and Chad Erway. This is my first time at this event, so I’ve got my fingers crossed for an amazing day with about 30 other authors.

November 17, I’ll be taking over The Scriptorium (http://www.greywolfepublishing.com/scriptorium-calendar.html) in Clawson, MI. The Scriptorium might be the best thing to happen to Michigan authors – Diana loves her authors and does so much for them, including letting them takeover the store to promote themselves. So, I’ll be setting up camp, ready to chat, sign books, and who knows what else we’ll do with the day. In the afternoon, I’ll be relieved by Andrew Lark, another fantastic local author. I’m looking forward to chatting with him for a while and hearing about what he’s been working on.

And that’s it for the year. My next event isn’t until 2019, but they’ll all be announced on my blog.

 

Selene: You’ve got a new novel coming out soon. Tell us about that.

 

Andy: Yes, Threshold comes out February 14, 2019. Threshold is the story of a mirror, but much in the same way that Empty Hallways is the story of a hospital. Cate is willed an antique mirror by her grandmother, but finds that the mirror has a dark secret that may have led to the death of her grandmother and many of its previous owners. While Cate tries to uncover the mirror’s secrets, her life is ebbing away as she is haunted by her own reflection.

There’s a presence that thrums through this story that gave me the heebie jeebies while I was reading it over through the drafts. Sometimes my imagination runs away with me. Mirrors don’t usually freak me out, but after writing this novel, I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at one the same way again – literally. But at the heart of it, like all of my stories, there’s a human element; a love story. It’s possibly my favorite thing about horror – not the scares, but the raw emotional value that I hide in the stories.

 

Selene: Here’s a standard “author question.” What do you like to read, and where do you get your inspiration for your stories?

Andy: I read a lot of different genres, and different stories. Your audience may think the worst of me, but I judge books by their covers. If I think a cover looks good, I’ll pick it up check out the blurb. If I like the blurb, I’ll read it. Or I’ll pick up the books my wife likes to read. It gives us something more to talk about – or inside jokes. Readers have the best inside jokes, like codewords that get you into a secret society.

More recently, I’ve been introduced to the Skulduggery Pleasant series, The Kingkiller Chronicles, and I’ve been slowly working my way through Stephen King’s early works and the Dresden Files from the beginning.

I get inspiration from everywhere. Anything can be twisted into something else. A mirror can be turned into a portal to another world. A hospital can hold a dark secret. People can be dangerous and ugly and monstrous behind their smiles and kind words.

 

Selene: Your other novel, House of Thirteen, is the first of a series, and At Calendar’s End is a limited series which takes place (and was published) throughout a calendar year. What are some of the pros and cons of writing a series, versus a stand-alone story?

Andy: The obvious pro is that you don’t have to quit working with characters that you adore. I really did fall in love with the characters in House of Thirteen. It was already hard enough for me to end the first book, if that had been it, I think I would have been crushed. I’ve been working slowly on Book Two, which means I do a lot of rereading through Book One… I can understand why it’s the fan favorite, there are some really wonderful characters in this story, and every now and again I’ll reread a passage, a little amazed that my writing is as good as it is.

It’s nice to have something familiar that you can drop back into and start writing without any need for world-building and origins and character introduction.

I think the downside to writing a series of any length is the struggle to keep the story going. There are times – especially on a project like At Calendar’s End, where it was tough sometimes to juggle such a big cast of characters and keep them interesting. Calendar has a cast of 13 characters, plus incidental characters scattered throughout. But thirteen characters is a hard crowd to keep shuffling around. You have to come up with things for them to do because people don’t just stop existing because you aren’t paying attention to them. It gets to be maddening when you’re trying to keep everyone straight and how you are going to keep everything moving to the end of the story. To borrow a phrase, it’s a lot like herding cats.

 

Selene: For At Calendar’s End, you worked with a cover artist, Brian Ritson. What was that like? Would you consider further collaborations, or a graphic novel?

 

Andy: I love working with Brian. We’ve known each other for a long time; he’s one of my dearest friends. He’s been my cover artist since I started publishing. He did the covers for Empty Hallways, and House of Thirteen, and he’ll be doing my covers until he doesn’t want to anymore.

It’s kind of to the point where I can give him what I’m thinking about for a cover – I can give him a crappy sketch – and just know that what he’s going to do with that is going to be awesome and exceed my expectations.

When I approached him with my idea for At Calendar’s End, I was sure he was going to turn me down. It was so much to ask. It was a taxing project, and it’s a lot to ask of an artist, but Brian worked magic. Sometimes all I had for him was a description of a character and nothing else. A lot of the art is his – not just his as in he did the art, but his as in he actually came up with the ideas, what the characters look like, and the execution of the whole cover design. The coloring book for At Calendar’s End was all his idea. (http://a.co/d/j5YRCOM). It’s brilliant. You never think you’re going to have these accomplishments, like “a coloring book based on your work” until suddenly there it is.

But yes, I will collaborate with Brian until he is done with me. It’s always a pleasure working with him, and a delight seeing his art come to life. I can’t tell you how excited I am for his art on Threshold.

Selene: Speaking of collaborations, your wife is an editor. Do you enjoy working with her, and her advice (as Stephen King says about his wife’s suggestions, even when they’re great his first response is “Yeah, but…”)?

 

Andy: I feel like saying anything but “yes” to this question is kind of a trap. Seriously though, yes, I love working with her. She is a non-stop supporter. She’s been there since all this author nonsense started. I don’t think either of us would have it any other way.

There are these moments as a writer where you have to take a breath and just step away. Those moments are super important when your editor is telling you things you don’t want to hear about your writing. The truth is that 99% of the time, the editor is right. They know what they are talking about. This is their job, and you just have to stop and accept that they aren’t criticizing your work because they want to hurt you, but they are invested in this project alongside you. They want the story to succeed as much as you do.

That doesn’t mean it is easy to take criticism.

The wonderful thing about having Bailey as an editor is that she knows how to wrangle me. Yes, she is my editor, but she is also my wife and my support system, both life and work. She knows how to talk to me about changes that need to happen. You could call it babying. She’s really good at it. But there have been arguments. There are these moments where she is trying to talk to me about my characters and I don’t want to hear it. It gets a little tense and I have to remember that Bailey the Editor and Bailey the Wife are separate people. And then, there are times where I know what the story calls for, but she is invested in the characters and doesn’t want anything to happen to them, then she has to remember that Andy the Writer and Andy the Husband are separate people – and both of them would like to live through the tragedies that befall the characters.

I totally understand that “Yeah, but…” Stephen King is talking about. It’s in the same bundle of nerves as “you just don’t get it…” but they do, and you as the writer just need to take a breather and give it time, because Bailey can tell you… it might be an hour, or it might be a day, but at some point, I’m going to come back and tell her that she was right and I’m going to make the changes she told me to.

 

Selene: You’re also a former student of film, and have made a short film called Atlas. How does working on a film differ from writing prose, and how might film influence your other work?

 

Andy: Writing has no budget. If you want it, you only have to describe it and it’s there. It’s an amazing weight off your shoulders. Film is a much more difficult discipline because of all the parts and people involved. It’s also much harder on the writer creatively.

When you write, you’re playing a film in your head. You’re describing scenes playing on your mind’s eye. But when you write a script, you’re providing cues and dialogue – and all of that is subject to change. You may think you know how it’s going to play out, but that’s the version you see in your head. Add in a director with his own sense of the scene, actors who have their own take on characters and delivery, a budget that may not have the money for the setting you wanted, etc… suddenly, that scene in your head looks a lot different from the scene that is actually being shot.

When Nathan Porter and I wrote Atlas, he was a super hero that could do everything. The trouble was that we were working on a micro budget and it was just the two of us shooting; the two of us would be doing the post-production, too. Suddenly, we’re making executive cuts to figure out what Atlas can do within our constraints.

On the other side of that, when I write a novel or a short story, I’m still seeing the movie play out in my head, but the story I’m writing is me telling you what that movie looks like. I’m going to tell you all the details you need to hear in order to get the story the way I want you to get it. I know you’re not going to get everything. That’s just how it goes. But I’m going to give you the important details and let you fill in the rest. It’s still my movie, and you’re seeing it mostly the way I wanted you to.

 

Selene: Your bio mentions you returned to school relatively late, and eventually obtained two film degrees. What was it like going back to school “late,” if that means you attended as a mature student? Do you find you use what you learned in your writing process?

 

Andy: I was in my late-20s when I went back to school for film. I was years older than most of the people in the program. It wasn’t that much of an issue, especially among film geeks. We’ve all seen Lynch and Kurosawa and Citizen Kane and all those movies that appear on all of the “greatest films” lists. Age didn’t really enter into it except when you’re trying to market to a specific audience.

I definitely use what I learned in my film classes. Setting the mood of a scene is exceptionally important. Film and prose are both, at least in my case, character-driven. Ideas translate very well between the two media, the only thing that really changes is the execution.

 

Selene: Let’s talk about setting. You live in Michigan, and your story in Tales of Horror On Halloween Night was set in Detroit. Do you “write what you know” with your settings, or do you like to explore stories set in different places?

 

Andy: I prefer to piecemeal my stories. I take a little of what I know and a lot of what I want to say, and I try to find a happy balance between the two. There’s very little of what I know in The Nain Rouge Incident, except that I really wanted to play with some Detroit legends, so this seemed like a really good place to start. Really, I’m combining a couple of pieces of Detroit folklore: the Nain Rouge and Devil’s Night. They worked really well together – at least I felt so. The story is also a period piece set in early-century Detroit. I have done very little historical research, but I also feel like that isn’t as necessary for the kinds of stories I write as it might be for some other writers.

I’m not writing for accuracy, I’m writing for entertainment, so I tend to cobble a lot of information together for my stories, settings, and characters, and a majority of it gets thrown out because it’s extraneous. There’s no place to fit it in without cramming it, so I leave it on the cutting room floor.

 

Selene: What about characters? What kinds of characters do you like to write about, and how do you come up with their personalities and choices?

 

Andy: I write what I want to read, so a lot of these characters that I am coming up with I either think are underrepresented in the stuff I am reading, or I think there is a really cool idea for a character and I try to build a story around them.

I have a lot of fun writing 20-somethings. I like putting that youthful lens on the world and trying to see it with that same frame of reference I had when I was just starting to figure things out. There’s a lot of room for bold assumptions and terrible mistakes and everything seems so much more drastic when you’re in that grouping. The highs are higher and the lows are lower, and it just makes for more compelling characters.

My favorite themes are mortality, identity, and love. I like exploring these, whether they are all crammed together, like in Empty Hallways, or they are all unknown and out of reach, like in House of Thirteen, I like to give characters some position within those three themes.

In House of Thirteen, Ren dies and comes back – right from the get-go, she is dealing with her mortality and in the process, kind of loses herself and her identity as a person because of this new phase of her life.

Mostly, I let the characters define their own personalities. It usually comes out in the dynamics between characters. Certain stories need certain people, and those people need other characters to play off of.

In Threshold, Cate and her boyfriend Lucas have a playfully antagonistic relationship. They’re invested in the relationship and in love, but at the same time, they are wrapped up in who they are as individuals, not as a couple. Through the story, they start to feel things out and understand who they are as individuals and as a couple – because and in spite of the true antagonist of the story.

 

Selene: What advice would you give a writer who’s just starting?

 

Andy: Write the stories you want to read. Look for inspiration for those stories. Watch tv, and movies, and start looking ahead of the plot. Try predicting the story and see where your story diverts from what you see. Take those predictions and start your own stories. Just one good idea will unfold into a story for you.

Come up with what-ifs, swap characters out of existing stories, combine two pieces of pop culture and create something new. Tell the story from a new perspective, maybe it’s the villain’s story… maybe it’s the dog’s.

Write a story that you get excited about telling. It doesn’t matter what it is; it only matters that you write it.

And the best piece of bad advice I can offer is this: write what you want to write, what you enjoy writing; don’t write what you think is going to sell. Sure, it might be the harder road, and there might not be any success in it, but the reward is its own. You’re not chasing anyone; you’re not rushing to keep up with tropes and genres. Do your own thing. Make yourself happy.

 

Selene: Thank you again for answering my questions. Do you have anything else you’d like to talk about?

 

Andy: I would love to just put it out there that the people of NaNoWriMo work their butt off every year to put this program on for the rest of the world. If you can, show them a little love and buy a tshirt or a coffee mug from their store to help keep the lights on. Then, find your local NaNo chapter and sign up. Show some support, go to the meetings, get involved. You may be a good writer on your own, but you’re a better writer with a community. I tried and failed to win NaNo for years before I finally found my people. I finished that year and six months later put out my first novel.

It’s not a gimmick. They don’t ask me to advertise. This is a community of writers, both hobbyists and professionals, that love what they do and want to encourage and pass it forward.

I believe that the world needs more stories, and we’re not going to get them if people aren’t writing them.

Thank you for having me, Selene, it’s been a pleasure.

 

If you would like to see more of Andy’s work, check out the following links:

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happierthoughts

Twitter: @randomgauge

Blog, books, and events: www.happierthoughts.com

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Andy-Lockwood/e/B00EZAVBEU/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_7?qid=1541565793&sr=8-7

Bailey’s editing site: justduckyediting.com

 

 

Selene – Welcome to The Horror Tree. Thanks for agreeing to an interview! Please tell us a bit about yourself.

 

Helen – Hi Selene, thank you so much for hosting me. I’m forty-eight, have five grown up children, four grandchildren and have been married for twenty-eight years. I love reading anything that scares me, I’m partial to a good, old horror film. I love coffee, chocolate, days off work and spending time with my family.

 

Selene – How long have you been writing, and what about the horror genre draws you?

 

Helen – I started writing my first book thirteen years ago, it took eight years from start to publication because I had no idea what I was doing. Ever since I discovered Stephen King, Dean Koontz, James Herbert and Graham Masterton I’ve been hooked on reading stories that scared the pants off me.

 

Selene – Several of your books are more in the crime/mystery/serial killer vein than straight horror. I’ve had some discussions about what defines horror lately. Where do you think crime thrillers fall in the broader genre?

 

Helen – I don’t class crime thrillers as horror although there are some pretty horrifying serial killers, real life is often far scarier than fiction.

 

Selene – Where do you get your ideas, and do you only write longer novels? The reason I ask is many authors also work in the shorter form.

 

Helen – I have lots of vivid dreams, some of my ideas have come to life because of a dream. I get inspiration from settings, newspaper articles, snippets of conversations, almost anything really. I also have a very overactive imagination. I tried writing a short story once and really struggled, I much prefer writing longer stories. For some reason I find them easier to write, although when I get to around forty-five thousand words I do wonder how on earth I’m going to ever finish the book.

 

Selene – This question is about setting. I noticed in your bio that you live in England and haven’t really left the UK. Yet many of your stories are set in the US, in places such as New York City. Do you find it hard to write about a place you haven’t visited?

 

Helen – I do live in a beautiful part of the UK, near to the Lake District. I’ve been lucky enough to visit New York four times since 2015, which was where the inspiration came from. I do prefer to set my stories in places I’ve visited, I like to be able to visualise it all in my mind when I’m writing about them.

 

Selene – Which leads to my question about research! How do you research a novel?

 

Helen – I’m lucky enough to work for the police which has been a massive help with research, the internet is a fabulous place. When I first started writing I’d spend hours at the library looking through books. Now we’re very fortunate we can find out almost anything within seconds.

 

Selene – Let’s talk about plot. You mentioned on your website’s writing tips section that plot is most important. One of the things I have the hardest time with (and probably why I stick to shorter stories) is taking characters and scenes and making them do something. How do you stick to a plot, and see it through to the end?  

 

Helen – I tend to have my ending before anything else, I like to know how the story will finish. Normally with some major, page turning climax. I then sit down with a notebook and pen, to write down a basic plot. Which I then transfer onto different coloured post it notes for each chapter or time difference. It’s almost impossible to follow it completely, the characters and story have a way of going their own way, but it’s there to fall back on should I get stuck.

 

Selene – Since horror and crime thrillers also require a means of building suspense, how do you approach the “thrills” aspect of your plots? You also mentioned scaring yourself while writing The Good Sisters.

 

Helen – I had to stop writing The Good Sisters once it got dark because I kept scaring myself. I’ve always been a voracious reader since I was a child, and this has been a huge help. I’ve also been brought up watching horror films and what I did was think back to all the scary, nail biting scenes that terrified me and tried to emulate the thoughts and feelings I experienced into my own writing.

 

Selene – On your blog, you mention knowing your characters well before you write them. How do you develop your characters?

 

Helen – I love Pinterest and love making boards for each book, I pin people, places, settings, locations, clothes, almost everything I think my characters would like and add it to my inspiration board. It’s great having visualisations to help bring them to life. I tend to write out their name and a basic description of them, what role they’re playing and how they move the story along. Quite often they come to life and develop minds of their own.

 

Selene – Several of your books are part of a series. What’s it like writing a series of stories about a character, rather than a standalone book?

 

Helen – I love the familiarity of the characters and locations when writing a series, it’s almost like writing about old friends. You get to know your characters so well they almost become a part of your family.

 

Selene – These next two questions deal with marketing your books. I saw the book trailer on your website, and since this is a newer way to market books, do you find the book trailer effective?

 

Helen – I’m not sure if it is to be honest, I love them. I think they bring the story to life and think that it’s a brilliant way to try and capture readers imaginations.

Selene – I think you’re the first author I’ve interviewed so far who’s on Instagram, or at least the first I’ve noticed. I’ve also been thinking that as an author, one really needs a social media presence these days. How do you like to use social media as a marketing tool, and how effective is it?

 

Helen – I love Instagram, it’s my favourite of all the social media sites. I think the simplicity makes it effective. I like to mix my life with my writing, I think it’s great for readers to see what goes on behind the scenes. It breaks up the ‘buy my book’ posts. Facebook is probably the most effective for authors although I really need to get to grip with Facebook Ad’s. I’m so busy with work, my family and writing that I don’t have as much time to spend on marketing as I’d like.

 

Selene – I took a peek at some of your reviews on Amazon, and they seemed to be a mixed bag. How do you handle critical reviews?

 

Helen – I don’t read them very often. It’s all too easy to get hung up on the negative ones, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. You could write the most amazing book in the world, win every prize and still someone won’t like it. Everyone has different tastes, you just have to remember that.

 

Selene – You’ve got ten books out now, and it seems like you’ve always got new ideas on the go. How do you manage your time, and what are some tips for productivity?

 

Helen – I love writing, but my crazy life can get in the way of it. The most productive way to get things done is to write whenever I have some time. I rarely watch the television now, instead I spend that time writing. I often have to get up really early to get some writing time in before work. I don’t put any pressure on myself unless there’s a looming deadline. I write little and as often as I can.

 

Selene – What advice (other than what’s on your blog) would you give a writer who’s just starting out?

 

Helen – Write what you’d want to read, don’t show your work to anyone in the early stages. Just get that first draft down on paper, don’t get hung up on wanting your best friend or parents to love it. Don’t worry about whether your commas are in the right place, the story is the most important thing. Everything else can be fixed on later drafts. There will be later drafts, possibly many. I lost count of how many times I rewrote The Ghost House before the publishers would buy it. Oh, and never give up, it does get hard, sometimes you wonder why on earth you started writing a story. Stick with it, take a break then go back to it. Remember you can do it.

 

Selene – Do you have anything else you’d like to talk about here? Thank you again for agreeing to an interview with The Horror Tree!

 

Helen – Thank you so much for having me Selene. I love talking about writing so feel free to get in touch with me.

 

Helen xx

 

https://www.helenphifer.com/
https://www.instagram.com/helenphifer/

https://twitter.com/helenphifer1

https://www.facebook.com/Helenphifer1/

 

 

Selene – Thanks for agreeing to an interview, and welcome to The Horror Tree. First, tell us a bit about yourself.

 

Lenore – I’m a fifth generation Floridian, though I now live in Virginia. I grew up in a rural area near a small town outside Orlando, just as Disney World was being built. We had lots of pets — cats, dogs, fish, turtles, birds — and of course plenty of water moccasins and alligators in the lake out back. This was back in the days when parents didn’t keep such a close eye on kids, so we often ended up basically swimming with these critters, too. Maybe that’s why I’m so comfortable around and relate to all sorts of animals, wild and tame — maybe more so than people, sometimes! Anyhow, I went away to college, studied art and literature and writing and a little law, then worked in various jobs. Including, but not limited to: the wardrobe department at Disney World, a golf-resort waitress, a nomadic county poet (yes, that’s a thing), a librarian at a hospital for the criminally insane, and in a large somewhat dysfunctional printing company. Then, finally, I ended up as a writer, educator, and editor.

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Selene – Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thanks for agreeing to an interview. Tell us a bit about yourself.

 

Francesco – thank you! My name is Francesco and I write words. On good days, I write them in the right order.

 

Selene – How long have you been writing, and what about the horror genre draws you?

 

Francesco – I published my first book in 2004, so it has been a while. I think humans are fantastic – in some cases fantastically awful, but still fantastic. We are defined by our emotions, and as Lovecraft put it, the oldest emotion is fear. I would add wonder to that. Horror, the horror I like at least, is about fear and wonder, it is about human beings, real people. Us.

 

Selene – You’ve got a new book just released this month, The Book Of Hidden Things. Let’s talk about that. It’s your first book released in English, right? This might seem like a dumb question, but did you write in English, or was it translated? How did you find the process of working in English?

 

Francesco – It is my first in English, yes, and I wrote it in English. The process was interesting. The challenge was also emotional: I am a slightly different person when I think in English than I am when I think in Italian, and thus a slightly different writer. On the plus side, writing in a second language, and one that I learned as a grown-up, gave me, I think, a better understanding of how language works in general. It made me realise something that William Burroughs said, that language is a virus. If we don’t control it, it controls us, and it is easy to be controlled by your mother tongue. You don’t even notice the virus is there; you think words are a transparent window on the world. Then you learn another language, and you discover there are no transparent windows, only mirrors and distant echoes.

 

Selene – Do you have any other books or stories available in English? Other than a few interviews, I’ve only been able to find articles about you in Italian (I don’t speak Italian, and I’m afraid my French and Spanish skills don’t transfer).

 

Francesco – More is coming!

 

Selene – I picked up the Kindle version of The Book Of Hidden Things as soon as it was available, and I’m really enjoying it. Especially, I’m enjoying the sense of time and place, and the Italian setting. How do you build your settings? Do you prefer a “realistic” setting, or are you a “world-builder”?

 

Francesco – First, thank you so much! There is nothing better for a writer to hear in the first few days after publication. Second, I am a world-amplifier. I love to look at real settings and describe them realistically, only, turning up the volume a little bit, for better or worse. I made bright colours slightly brighter and the low tunes slightly lower, but only very slightly, almost unnoticeably so. I want to retell the real world as a fairy tale. Of course, fairy tales are terrifying.

 

Selene – Another thing I found interesting about the setting of The Book Of Hidden things was how familiar some of the characters’ feelings about their dead-end little town felt. This is amusing since many tourists from other places seem to want to go to these quaint little towns in Europe, but the locals can’t get away fast enough! Did you think about this irony while you were writing about the town?

 

Francesco – Definitely. I am a victim of this irony myself. I left my town when I was 18, which means I have been living away for more of half my life. I hated it there, but now I love going back and look at the place as someone who is a local and also a privileged tourist.

 

It is worth remembering how old these places in the Mediterranean are – there are plenty of settlements older than Rome, which evolved in modern towns or cities. You can have a thousands-year-old necropolis at the edge of town, as it is in my hometown, and local teenagers just shrug it off: such stuff is so common it is not even considered creepy.

 

These lands have been borderland forever, and there was time for a lot of layers to come into being – the layers you see as a tourist are real, but there are others, for better or worse. Hidden ones.

 

Selene – You have another book, a non-fiction philosophy book, coming out in November, called A Sense of Wonder. Tell us about this concept. Does this relate to magic realism, another term that’s associated with your work?

 

Francesco – very much. That Sense of Wonder is a popular philosophy book on how to reconnect with wonder as grown-ups, in a grown-up way, rather than chasing the elusive ‘inner child’. I think reality is deeply magical. It is strange and wonderful and terrifying, and I try to write fiction and nonfiction reflecting that.

 

Selene – “A sense of wonder” certainly fits the feeling of the world you’ve created in The Book of Hidden Things. Does the inspiration for your non-fiction and fiction writing overlap?

 

Francesco – That would be another yes. There is an overarching aesthetic project (if the expression doesn’t sound too pretentious): I want to play my part in re-enchanting the world. We tend to consider reality much more boring than it actually is, and we end up being jaded, only because we don’t look far or deep enough. My entire writing could be summed up in the words, screw that.

 

Selene – Do you believe there are things (magic, monsters, the supernatural, etc.) that exist outside or at the edges of human experience? How might we access these things?

 

Francesco – These are splendid questions which would be belittled by an answer.

 

Selene – Speaking of inspiration, where do you get your ideas? What inspires your stories?

 

Francesco – real life, by and large. I am a realistic writer who happens to see reality from an odd angle. I have an intense social life, and I try to keep my daily experiences as varied as possible. I spend as much time ‘out there’ as I do sitting at my desk. The world is ripe with ideas; the difficult bit is doing something with them.

 

Selene – In The Book Of Hidden Things, I’m enjoying the twists and turns and suspensefulness of the story. How do you create suspense, to tease the reader into following the “maze” of your narrative?

 

Francesco – I write for readers. Always, always for readers. I have a great time doing that, but I very much do not write for myself. I think of myself as a guide to another world, who must gain the readers’ trust in the first few pages, so that those readers will follow me through the strangest paths I want to lead them through. With every word and every comma I put on the page, I think, ‘If I were a reader, would I find this boring?’. There is a place, of course, for challenging, difficult books. But when boredom creeps in, the writer failed.

 

It is not a very technical answer, because I find the technical bits not very interesting. They exist and as a writer, you need to know them, but it is not rocket science and you can learn them comparatively easily. What makes the difference is not the toolkit but the mindset.

 

Selene – Let’s talk about the characters in The Book of Hidden Things. They feel like real people, with real flaws and secrets. How do you create believable characters?

 

Francesco – I always think, ‘how would this person act in the real world?’. I put myself in the mindset of someone who is writing a real story about real people, a chronicle more than fiction. So, rather than try to make up what could happen to my characters, I try to understand what already happened to them, and be true to that. I also believe that to an extent characters are metaphysically true, but I am weird that way.

 

Selene – In one interview, you mentioned you relate most to Tony. Do you write characters with elements of yourself, or try to gain different points of view through the characters?

 

Francesco – I try hard not to write myself into characters; sometimes I agree with their worldview, sometimes I don’t, but again, I try to empty myself of myself as much as I can, and let them speak through me, rather than the other way round. The writing of the first draft is mostly me trying to understand who they are, what they do, and why. The other drafts are about polishing that. Often, when I am stuck with a story, it is because I made a character act in a way which was not the way that person would act in the real world; because I lied.

 

Selene – You’ve also put together a collection of work from classic authors, meant to be read aloud. How would you say reading aloud differs from listening to audiobooks or story podcasts like Pseudopod? Why should adults read to each other?

 

Francesco – because we need to meet in person, in flesh and blood and skin and bones. Audiobooks are great, and so are podcasts, but meeting in person is a different kind of pleasure. Reading aloud to adults was fairly common until not so long ago; then, with the coming of the radio fist, and the television after, it disappeared. Which is a shame: reading aloud is a gently intimate act, which brings people together. And we need more of that, more time spent together IRL so to speak. A lot of fears, hatred, divisions, disappear when you meet face to face.

 

Selene – What advice would you give a writer just starting out? In particular, I’d like to know your feelings about working in another language.

 

Francesco – Have an interesting life. Everything else you can learn, but if your book is going to be a riff on other books, even a well-played riff, why bother? Meet new people, try new things, explore, and come back to report what you found. As for writing in another language… it is exhausting and exciting. Do it only in a language you love in and by itself. Be in love with words, be in love with culture, be in love with people. Writing can be hard, so you need a whole lotta love to get through.

 

Selene – Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions. Do you have anything else you’d like to talk about here?

 

Don’t get me started. I’m a talker.

 

Thanks for your time, Francesco!

You can follow Francesco on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fdimitri

 

Selene – Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thanks for agreeing to an interview! First off, tell us a bit about yourself.

 

Brent – Thanks for having me! Let’s see, what about me is interesting enough to discuss in this interview… Well, I like campfires. To me, there isn’t much better than a cold beer next to a cracklin’ fire. I live in the country in northern Wisconsin, and tonight the bullfrogs down in the pond are ribbiting back and forth to each other like crazy. The moon is bright, the stars are out, and if I didn’t have to work tomorrow I’d be out back throwing another log on the fire. My wife and I have a son who is now 6. He and I study Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at Groundwork Grappling in Rhinelander, WI. We like hunting for treasure (geocaches), and we’re building a pirate ship in the backyard. And I have a dog in my shirt at this very moment.

 

Selene – How long have you been writing, and what about the horror genre interests you?

 

Brent – I wrote my whole life, just nothing big. Anything I wrote on my own was usually no longer than a page up until I took Creative Writing in college. One of the big reasons for that was I wanted to be able to hand somebody something and watch their reaction as they read it. I was always a bit of a prankster. Jumping out of the shadows, leaving little wooden Blair Witch guys in your pillowcase, tricking people into eating human flesh, stuff like that. It was always fun to get people, and horror was the best way to do that. But then it got deeper. I started to realize there were bigger reasons to write horror and dark fantasy stories. You can actually help people deal with real-life horrors. You can give people hope. Like, if Nancy can beat Freddie, maybe Clyde can get through tomorrow. And the horror community is amazing. They’re people who have been into the darkness, and they don’t want anyone to be left there.

 

Selene – Is all your work published with Omnium Gatherum? What’s it like working with them? I’m curious because I’ve seen their calls for submissions periodically.

 

Brent – I have a few short stories published in other places, but most of my stuff is published with Omnium Gatherum. All of my novels are published with Omnium Gatherum. I met Kate Jonez, the Chief Editor, back in like 2009 or 2010. Kate liked my story about this guy named Chuggie, and she helped me workshop the manuscript into an actual book. She’s one of the hardest working people I know, and my experience with OG has been overwhelmingly positive over the years. OG authors support each other a ton. I highly recommend submitting to Omnium Gatherum if you have something that meets their call.

 

Selene – On your website, you describe your work as “Dark Fantasy, Horror, and Whimsy.” The stories of yours that I read (“JP,” “A Friend in Paga,” and the first 40 pages of Cruce Roosters) definitely have a thread of humour and weirdness running through them. I’ve never been all that good at writing “funny,” so how do you do it?

 

Brent – I don’t know how good I am at it either, but I’ll tell you my approach. When it’s time for something funny to go in the story, I write something that makes me laugh. I laugh at some pretty stupid stuff. They don’t all land, and sometimes the joke is a stretch. I don’t try to make all of my readers laugh. I try to make myself laugh and a couple of close friends. Keep Away From Psycho Joe was basically written for an audience of two.

 

Selene – Let’s talk about your artwork, which can be found on your website. It’s also pretty weird and disturbing. What inspires you visually, and how does the visual nature of art inspire your writing (if it does)?

 

Brent – I get inspired by folks like Beksinski and Giger and Wayne Barlowe and Chet Zar, among a long list of others. My art is a LONG way off from those guys, but that’s the kind of way-out stuff I’m drawn to. I love things that are strange and bewildering. The kinds of things where you stare and wonder what other bizarre marvels exist in that world. What is the history there? What is the mythology? How late for work am I willing to be today, in order to ponder this further?

 

Selene –  Obligatory question: Where do you get your ideas?

 

Brent – Well, the world is full of strange things and terrifying history. Everywhere you look there’s something dark and twisted that we just accept as normal. Eavesdropping on people when you’re out and about is helpful, as long as you don’t, you know, be all creepy about it. Driving through the countryside with the radio off and the windows down has been good for idea birthing, too.

 

Selene – Cruce Roosters was just released a few months ago. For our readers, what is it about?

 

Brent – Cruce Roosters is a future-sports/dystopian horror novella. The land is governed by a man called Prophit King, and the national pastime is a sport called Cruce. It’s a violent team sport that involves getting “bombs” into the opposing team’s roost. Roosts are protected by crucibles built by each team. The players are called Roosters. Some attack the opposing roost, some defend their own. The story follows a young Crucecaster named Molly Most who catches the eye of Prophit King. He isn’t the sort of person who you can say no to, so Molly is in a tight spot. Horrific things happen, and then I don’t know, probably rainbows and friendship? I’m not positive how it ends, but people seem to like it. It’s also full of fake ads that I made.

 

Selene – Cruce Roosters has a pretty motley cast of characters, but the strongest is the story’s heroine, Molly. How do you develop your characters, and what goes into creating an interesting protagonist?

 

Brent – I think what helps me is to think about a specific person playing the character. Chuggie, for example, is inspired by Tom Waits. Developing Molly happened more in the second draft. First draft, she was just a name that stuff happened to. My editor Kate asked me, “What does Molly want more than anything?” I pondered a few days and realized that what Molly wants most is to be the #1 Crucecaster in the nation. Once I understood what she wanted, her personality became clear. Her reactions and dialog came much more easily then. Molly kind of became a mash-up of Erin Andrews, Olivia Munn, and Mila Kunis.

 

Selene – Do you find it difficult to write female characters? How does it differ from a male protagonist, if at all?

Brent – I definitely have to think a little harder when I’m writing female characters. Writing dudes, I don’t have to dig very deep for reactions and dialog and stuff. It’s nice to have a female editor who can say, “Uh, no, she wouldn’t do that. Throw this whole manuscript away and start over. Again.”

 

Selene – You also have a series of books about a character called Chuggie, which I haven’t started yet. The quality of your work that struck me, and I’ve mentioned it a couple of times, is “weird.” Not that it’s a bad thing, but I guess this is a question about “world building.” What disturbs you, and how do you use it to creep out your readers? (Again, that’s a compliment!)

 

Brent – I used to get sleep paralysis, starting at about age 15. I didn’t know what it was back then. I thought I might be going crazy, so I didn’t really tell anybody about it until college. It happened a lot, though, and I decided to deal with it by writing them down. I kept a little journal that would have a little write-up and a little sketch of each episode. The little ventriloquist dummy standing in the doorway, the giant dog that came into my room, lots of others. So those things used to disturb me, but then I wrote them down. Now they work for me, like little, abstract monster-slaves.

 

From a world-building standpoint, it’s a question of, in what world are these things possible? More questions follow: What forces allow – or cause – these things to exist? Who opposes those forces, and how? Keep writing and answering those questions, and soon you’ve got a world that’s nice and juicy… Juiceworld! Ah, Juiceworld, where the rain makes you sticky and the Shlooblian Juicefolk will kill you dead if they catch you drinking from the holy fountain of Juicikalis!

 

Selene – Do you find you like revisiting characters and plots for a series? How does it differ from writing a “standalone” story?

 

Brent – I do like revisiting. Keep Away From Psycho Joe and Cruce Roosters were both intended to be standalones. Psycho Joe ended with a bit of a cliffhanger, but I was happy to leave it there. When people ask you what happens next, though, it’s hard not to think about what happens next. Hm? You wanna know what happens to Ruby and Justine? Alright, have a seat by the fire and I’ll tell you. What happens after Cruce Roosters? I don’t know. Well, I know a couple things. Okay, have a seat by the fire and I’ll tell you that, too. What happens in Chuggie #4? Put some coffee on and wheel the big chalkboard out here.

 

Selene – Another obligatory author question. What authors or books have influenced your writing, and what do you like to read?

 

Brent – Stephen King’s Dark Tower series was a huge influence. Frank Herbert’s Dune series. Douglas Adams, Wayne Barlowe, Hunter S. Thompson, and Piers Anthony, to name a few. I get into comics sometimes, too. Most recently I read Irredeemable, and it blew me away. I’m re-reading Requiem: Vampire Knight now, because that series is so juicy they ought to change the name to Juiceworld!

 

Selene – OK, I have to ask. What’s the deal with JP? I read the story and it creeped me out, then I saw the real JP on your YouTube video, and I can’t imagine how something so harmless can inspire something so creepy!

 

Brent – For folks who don’t know me, JP is my little dog buddy. He’s a Chinese Crested, and he lives to snuggle. One time my wife was in the next room, and I go, “Hey, can you call JP in there and take a look at this thing on his head?” So she calls him in thinking he’s got a lump or something, and what does she discover? JP’s wearing a little cowboy hat. Adorable! He and I are quite fond of each other. The short story was for an Omnium Gatherum anthology called Little Visible Delight. The theme was obsession. In the story, I’m obsessed with JP’s well-being, to an unhealthy degree. What happens when your little angel dog starts to get old? Well, you do what has to be done. The story came from my real fears. I’m glad people seem to like it.

 

Selene – Your writing work is fairly prolific, yet you have a lot on your plate. How do you balance writing with “real life” obligations?

 

Brent – No idea. I don’t know how prolific I am, and right now the writing is kind of taking a back seat to real life. When things settle down and it’s time to get serious, I’ll go to bed early and get up at 4 or 5am. I prefer to stay up late, but my best writing these days comes in the early morning when it’s dark and quiet and the coffee flows like wine. A hard ride down the ol’ bike trail does wonders for boosting the creativity, too.

 

Selene – What advice would you give a writer who’s just starting out?

 

Brent – Get a tiny notebook. Put it in your pocket and take it with you everywhere. Also a pen and some fingernail clippers (unrelated, just handy). Fill the tiny notebook with notes and sketches and outlines for your story. Later, you might take a highlighter and use it to write the number of the chapter each note would go into. Then you might type those notes into those chapters and find you’re halfway to a manuscript.

 

Selene – Thanks again for joining us here. Do you have anything else you’d like to talk about, and what’s in store for the near future for you?

 

Brent – Thanks for having me! I have a handful of projects in the works, all ripping along a glacial speed. I thought I’d leave you with a passage I think about all the time. It’s from “The Ladder of St. Augustine” by Longfellow:

“The heights by great men reached and kept

     Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

      Were toiling upward in the night.”

 

 

Thanks so much for your time, Brent! If you would like to find out more about Brent and his work, you can find him via the following links:

 

BrentMichaelKelley.com

BMK on Instagram

BMK on Facebook

BMK on Twitter

 

Selene – Welcome to The Horror Tree, and thanks for agreeing to this interview! First off, tell us a bit about yourself.

 

Shannon – Hi, I’m excited to be here! I’m a mom of two, hiker, horror author, and over-thinker who loves research and freaky things. I live in Colorado Springs, in the foothills of the Rockies, and I love the rugged beauty of the area. I do miss the ocean, having always lived on the coast before I came here, but the mountains have claimed me, and I’m not sure I could leave them.

 

Selene – How long have you been writing, and what draws you to the horror genre?

 

Shannon – Like most of us, I’ve been writing since I was a kid, but I started writing for publication about four or five years ago, and that’s also when I started actively submitting short stories to magazines. As for what draws me to horror, I got hooked on it as a kid when I’d read historical “real” ghost stories and collections of horror short stories for middle grade, which mostly consisted of urban legend-type tales. I discovered Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe in elementary school, and I was hooked.

 

Even before I started reading these stories, though, I had a grandmother who used to take me to horror movies. She loved them. My mom used to get so mad at her! I was five years old when she took me to see Cat People at the theatre. Given, my parents had shelves full of horror novels by King and Koontz, and they never restricted my reading (though I snuck my first few Stephen King novels—better to apologize than to ask permission?)

 

Selene – I bought a Kindle copy of your collection, Blue Sludge Blues, and read a few of the stories. The next couple of questions will deal with that collection. Do you write only short stories, or do you work in the longer form, as well? What about short stories appeals to you?

 

Shannon – I’m actually shopping a novel to agents now, but my first love is, and always will be short stories. I can tell so many more stories and meet countless characters, all in less time than it takes to write a novel. It’s a bit of an addiction, really. There’s no roller coaster like the short story roller coaster of writing, editing, submitting, getting rejected, submitting, getting published, and having all these exciting book/magazine releases interspersed through it all.

 

Selene – Your stuff has a very visceral quality to it. By that, I mean I was eating and had to stop! Stephen King famously said, “If I can’t terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I can’t horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out.” Let’s talk about the use of gore and other sensory descriptions (especially smell) in your work.

 

Shannon – I like to try to engage the senses in my stories (whether I accomplish it or not is another story) for exactly that visceral reaction. The title story, “Blue Sludge Blues,” started out as an experiment in how people would react to an assault on the senses. It was also my attempt to stop holding back. I got to read the story in front of a room full of people at an open mic before I’d completed it. Hearing and seeing their reactions was amazing.

 

I feel like engaging the senses further engages the reader. Or I hope so, anyway. The sense of smell is often tied together with memory, and it can influence the way someone responds when they’re reading, especially if it’s a familiar smell.

 

Horror is about making people uncomfortable, often to make them think about things in a way they might not have before. Hitting them in the senses, the things that control their mental responses to a point, is a way of doing this. But I like to use the senses in positive ways sometimes, too. Sprinkling in positive sensory experiences can make it all the more extreme when things go wrong.

 

Selene – Further to the “gore” question, there are different types of horror, from splatter up to stories that are more psychological, with little violence at all. How would you classify your work, and how do you create the “creepy” factor in a story? Particularly given a short story has much less room to build suspense than a longer novella or novel.

 

Shannon – My earlier stories, which are the ones in “Blue Sludge Blues & Other Abominations,” leaned toward the more visceral, though there are also psychological horror stories in there (“Salvation Lottery,” for one.) Recently, I’ve been writing more psychological, quieter horror. At first, it wasn’t intentional; that’s just what started coming out when I’d sit to type. I’m now purposely pursuing that as a learning experience. I consider most of my horror to be what I term blue collar horror. It’s meant to get to the point and, hopefully, to entertain and satisfy the need for a monster, whether furry, tentacled, or human. Nothing flashy. After all, the first horror authors I read were King and Koontz, and I’d very much consider them blue collar horror (though I also think both are beautiful writers, and revisiting their older works lately, I’m really seeing that where I’d forgotten it existed).

 

On creating the creepy factor, I try to think of something that gets a reaction from me, to begin with. If I can’t at least emotionally understand why something would be scary, I don’t want to write about it. It’s why I haven’t done a clown story yet. If and when I do, it will mean I can finally empathize with why a clown is scary. Right now, the fact that they scare other people makes me love them, but I don’t think I could scare someone with a story about them without that intellectual understanding of why they would be scary.

 

The beauty of a short story is you have fewer characters to work with, and less expectation of story cushioning via sub-plots. I can get to the creepiness of a situation faster because I have to set the scene faster and simpler. There’s not a chapter to introduce the main character and their current situation: there are a couple paragraphs.

 

Selene – I’ve noticed that several of your characters are unnamed, or only identified by a first name. Why is this, and is it intentional? How do you approach character creation?

 

Shannon – I’m not sure it’s ever been fully intentional, but I find it can be disruptive to getting into the character’s head as a reader if there’s too much to identify them and set them too far apart from me. As a reader, I need to be able to empathize with them, but if I can identify with them, find some common ground, that’s going to draw me in even more. I want the character to matter and be someone the reader can feel for, and I want them to have a story of their own, but I also want the reader to be able to put themselves in their place, to feel afraid for them.

 

For character creation, I usually jump in with the beginning of the character in my head (I’m a pantser), and then I figure out what their story is outside of what they’re about to face. Is this terrible thing happening to them something that has encroached on their current, normal life, or is it because they changed something, went somewhere new?

 

Selene – “Where do you get your ideas?” is a common question. But at the back of Blue Sludge Blues, you include a “Story Notes” section that explains some of your processes. Have you had much feedback, and how are the story explanations received?

 

Shannon –Surprisingly, I have heard privately from a few people who liked that I put the story notes at the end, and I think one of my reviews even mentioned it, so I definitely plan to do that again in the future. I’ve heard most about the notes on “What the Fire Left Behind,” because that was one of my most personal stories in the collection. I wrote it to exorcise the anxieties left behind when I fled the Waldo Canyon Fire with my family. It was a terrifying experience that still haunts everyone who experienced it firsthand, and I needed to write it out.

 

The whole reason I did story notes in the first place is that I enjoy it when other authors do it. Often, in anthologies, the story notes are right there at the beginning of a story, and there’s something slightly more intimate about knowing what influenced or inspired the story, and what the author was thinking when they wrote it. It often gives more insight into the story itself and can change the meaning of it when re-read.

 

Selene – The Story Notes on “The Salvation Lottery” mention you wrote the story based on an idea for an anthology whose deadline passed. I’m terrible with deadlines, and I do this all the time! (Write stories on a theme, but don’t submit because the call is closed). How do you deal with deadlines and the realities of writing on a time limit?

 

Shannon – I’m actually someone who works best with a deadline (and not a self-imposed one, either). I thrive most when I’m most limited. I was one of those people who could write insane, A+ papers the night before they were due because the pressure made me work harder than I would have had I done it in advance. So far, I haven’t had many strict timelines or deadlines for writing, but I’ll say that the earlier in the process I see a story call with a deadline, the less likely I’ll write it or that I’ll like what I end up writing. So if I see a call now that’s due six months from now, even if it inspires an idea, it’s probably not going to happen. If I see a call tonight for something due two days from now, I’ll write that story and end up loving it. There’s something about the pressure. Those ones are more likely to make it into the final product than the ones I had months to work on, too.

 

Selene – Let’s talk about story setting. Your blog mentions you live in Colorado, although the stories I’ve read of yours didn’t mention specific locations. One of the peculiar constraints I’ve found of the short story form is that there isn’t a lot of room to describe place settings or surroundings. How do you let the readers know where the story is set, or is it better to have an “every town” fictional setting?

 

Shannon – There are some stories where I think the “every town” setting is best, because in horror the more you can make the reader feel like this could actually happen to them, the better. I’m a fan of normal settings versus, say, a cemetery, because someone’s more likely to be walking down a suburban street than frolicking in a cemetery. Therefore, it will feel more real with a more mundane setting. I do try to set a scene as far as the type of surroundings the character happens to have around them. Are we in the woods? If so, there will be trees, piney scents, birds chirping, leaves crunching underfoot, wind soughing through the leaves, etc. Are we in suburbia? There will be pavement and manicured lawns, the scent of grass clippings and grilled meat, other people’s voices drifting out of their windows. All of that can be set fairly quickly, and if it’s a familiar type of place, little work has to go into it to make the reader fill in the rest of the blanks.

 

Selene – If I have this right, Blue Sludge Blues contains some previously published stories and some newer ones. Did you self-publish, and why did you go with self-publishing, instead of approaching a “traditional” or other publisher?

 

Shannon – It contains mostly previously published stories, but I put in, I think, four new stories for those who’ve purchased the other publications I’ve been in. I wanted them to have something new to make it worthwhile. Some of the stories had been in magazines that have gone out of print, so the stories can no longer be found any other way, and I didn’t want them to disappear. Plus, there’s something special in having a book with just your name on the front. I was tired of going to signing events and having people look at the book that caught their eye first then call me by the editor’s name, and then having to explain the situation.

 

I did self-publish for a couple reasons. One, I wanted to learn how to do it, to experience that process. Two, I wasn’t sure if there was a point to going through a traditional publisher with a bunch of stories that had already been published by someone else. Would they be interested? I can’t see why. And why let someone else once again profit off my stories, when that had already happened, minus whatever payment I got, with them the first time around? I’d like to embrace the hybrid style of publishing, where I go traditional for some pieces and self-published on others, and I’m really curious to see which ends up being the most rewarding. I’m too early in the game to say yet.

 

Selene – A general “writer” question here. Since all writers are readers, what do you like to read?

 

Shannon – I read pretty much everything, but the genres I read the absolute most are horror, urban fantasy, mystery, and thriller. I’m actually doing a study project with a couple friends where we’re working through a list of 100 Best Horror Novels put out by Nightmare Magazine a couple years ago. I’ve discovered authors I had no idea existed, and I feel it’s greatly expanding the type of horror I write and my understanding of horror, the definition of which has broadened since I started this project. I’ve stopped saying, “That’s not horror!” quite as much as I used to.

 

Selene – You’re involved with a couple of local writing groups (Mountain of Authors, The Rocky Mountain Writing Group). Tell us about these groups and the workshops they offer.

 

Shannon – The groups I’ve mostly been involved with are Pikes Peak Writers and Pikes Peak Pen Women (a local branch of the National League of American Pen Women). I was a volunteer for Pikes Peak Writers for many years, and even served on their board of directors, but quit last year so I could focus on writing. They hold an annual conference in April, which was once called the friendliest writer’s conference by Writer’s Digest, and they do a variety of monthly programs, like an open mic, open critique, a writer’s night for discussions about writing with any topic requested, Write Drunk Edit Sober, and Write Brains with a guest speaker, all of these monthly and free. It’s not just a writer’s group, but also a supportive writing community.

 

Pikes Peak Pen Women is focused on those who are already published. They do a monthly luncheon with a guest speaker, and a lot of community outreach, such as a program doing poetry in the schools, where they introduce kids at poorer elementary schools to writing poetry and even getting it made into books at the end of the program. They also buy books to be distributed at these same schools. The interesting thing about this group is that, despite its name, it’s multi-focused on women in the arts. Membership consists of writers, musical composers, and artists/photographers. There are a lot of inter-arts programs to mix the various art forms together. This is an older organization, created when women weren’t allowed in various press clubs and men’s writing and arts groups, and it has a rich history. They have branches in different states, so anyone wanting to join could look up whether there’s a branch near them.

 

I’m part of an online blogging group called Insecure Writer’s Support Group, open to any bloggers. They do a monthly blog hop where writers talk about their insecurities and offer each other support, and they now do an annual anthology members can submit to. I mention this group since it’s not limited to Colorado Springs, and it’s easy to get involved, no matter where someone is, so if you don’t have a local writer’s group, check out the IWSG.

 

I’m fairly new to Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, though there’s a lot of overlap between that and Pikes Peak Writers, but they also hold an annual conference and have monthly free and paid programming, and they’re a great group, too!

 

Mountain of Authors is an annual event put on by Pikes Peak Library District. PPLD does a lot to work with the local writing community, and even provides space for Pikes Peak Writers to hold some of their events.

 

The short version (too late) is that I live in an area with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to having a thriving writing community. I know not everyone is this lucky. There’s a lot to choose from here (and I’ve just scratched the surface—there are other organizations!) It’s a fantastic place to be a writer.

 

Selene – Your blog mentions some pretty scary experiences, including almost being kidnapped, being in the car when a serial killer came after your mom (!) and being chased by a shark. Now I really want to know the story behind these details. Do you think these scary experiences have shaped any part of your writing interests?

 

Shannon – I’m sure they have! I’ve lived a pretty interesting life, with lots of crazy experiences, and pieces of those experiences sometimes end up in my fiction. There are several stories in my collection that were inspired by real-life events, even if it was just a small piece of the real occurrence. I moved more than some (and less than, say, military families), so I got some incredibly diverse life experiences that people who’ve lived in one area might not have. It’s given me a different way of looking at things.

 

Selene – The profile also mentions you’re a fan of unsolved mysteries. I enjoy watching conspiracy videos on YouTube, but my favourite mysteries are the ones collectively solved many years later. What’s your favourite mystery, and in a story, do you think it’s better to “tie up loose ends,” or to let the threads hang?

 

Shannon – I do love unsolved mysteries! My grandmother (not the one who took me to horror movies had a bunch of books chock-full of things like the Bermuda Triangle and the lost city of Atlantis, stories we all grew up with. She also had a subscription to Fate Magazine. I especially love a good creepy mystery, like what happened at Dyatlov Pass? What happened to the Three Flannan Isles lighthouse keepers? There’s a blog challenge that happens every April called the A-to-Z Challenge, and sometimes people pick themes. In 2013, I chose Unsolved Mysteries as my theme and did posts on mysteries like those above, plus Natalie Wood’s death, Edgar Allan Poe’s final days, the Mary Celeste, etc. There was one for each letter of the alphabet, and it was a ton of fun reading up on those.

 

Sometimes I like to leave threads hanging in stories, and sometimes it seems most appropriate to tie it up in a neat bow, though if I can do that and still leave some doubt, that’s the best.

 

Selene – Another “general writer question.” What advice would you give a writer who is just starting out?

 

Shannon – My advice would be to read a lot and write a lot, but it would also be to SUBMIT. The number of people I know who have been writing as long and longer than I have, and who have not sent in anything for submission in all these years is staggering. Put yourself out there! Harden yourself to rejection, because it’s absolutely not personal. You can’t succeed without putting yourself out there, even though it means risking failures (yes, plural). Also, never stop learning. Even Stephen King has things he can learn, and he’s been in this game for decades. Like any other job, you should always be learning how to do it better.

 

If you can, find a local writing community. If you don’t have one, consider creating one. Your local library might help you out. Oooo, and another one: don’t pass up opportunities just because you’re scared. The yeses I’ve given have led to so many wonderful things, like writer’s groups, conferences, speaking gigs, signing gigs, podcast interviews, and invitations to anthologies. Try to push yourself to read new things and to write the things you aren’t most comfortable with. And if you start to lose your passion, rediscover it before moving on.

 

Selene – What’s next for you, and do you have anything else you’d like to share with our readers? Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions today.

 

Shannon – Thank you for the great questions! Currently, I’m working on a horror comedy novella about killer squirrels, and I’m still actively writing and submitting short stories. I’m looking at putting together a craft book on short stories, and I hope to put out a collection of short stories either annually or bi-annually as long as I have the rights back on enough stories. Also, I’ll be a guest on the Horroraddicts.net podcast July 21, and a panellist at Denver Comic Con in June, and I’d love to meet anyone attending.

 

 

 

If you would like to find out more about Shannon and her work, you can follow her via the below links:

 

Website: thewarriormuse.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewarriormuse/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/thewarriormuse

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewarriormuse/